Kernel Cob And Little Miss Sweetclover eBook

“Maybe I can help you to escape from here,”
said Jackie Tar, “and maybe I can’t, but
I can try. I’ve had a plan in my mind for
a long time but I’ve had no one to help me but
these Japs, and they’re not worth the paint
on their faces. Are you brave enough to risk it
with me?”

Kernel Cob swelled out his chest and showed his medals,
and told Jackie Tar how he had fought the savages
single handed.

“You’ll do,” laughed the sailor,
and he told them his plan. “Do you see
that red box over there in the corner?

“Well, that’s a Japanese kite. It
goes up into the air very quickly. What I say
to do is to climb into the kite, and go up with it.
It’s a big one and will carry us all.”

“Where’ll we go to?” asked the Villain.

“What care we, as long as we get out of here,”
and he hitched his trousers as real sailors do.

“Will you do it?”

“You bet,” said Kernel Cob.

So it was agreed that they would go up in the kite,
and they moved over to it and tugged at it till they
had it in the center of the room. Then a great
clatter of talk arose from all the Japanese dolls,
which sounded like a lot of chickens calling for their
dinner; but Kernel Cob and Jackie Tar and the Villain
and Sweetclover paid no heed to them, but only tugged
the harder till they had the kite out into the middle
of the road.

“There are just four of us,” said Jackie
Tar. “Each man tar to a corner. Quick!
All aboard,” and it was all they could do to
hold down the kite.

“Stand by to get the ship under way. Up
anchor. Heave ho, lads. Heave ho.”

But at that moment....

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XIII

The little Japanese girl returned, pulling her father
down the road.

The little old man was waving his arms about fiercely
and shouting, “Zaca sakasaka,” and before
the kite had risen from the ground he had reached
it, and the next moment Kernel Cob, Sweetclover, the
Villain and Jackie Tar were being carried into the
toy-shop.

“Did you ever see such luck in all your life?”
grumbled Kernel Cob.

“I might have known it was Friday,” said
Jackie Tar, for sailors are very superstitious.

“Never mind,” said the Villain, “we’ll
get away another day.”

“Oh, let us hope so,” said Sweetclover,
“for I don’t want to be ripped apart by
that bad Japanese.”

“Well, that’s what the toy-maker will
do if you don’t escape him,” said Jackie
Tar, and his eyes would have bulged if they had been
real ones instead of just painted.

“Why doesn’t he rip you apart?”
asked Kernel Cob.

“Because I’m made of wood. I haven’t
got any stuffings,” said Jackie Tar.

By this time the four had been laid upon the floor,
and the Japanese dolls had started a great clatter
of talk. The little girl picked up Sweetclover
and was smoothing out her ruffled dress when the Toy-maker
took up a pair of scissors and grabbed up Kernel Cob,
before he could draw his sword.